About “River Euphrates”

The sixth track on Surfer Rosa, squeezed in-between classic Pixies hits “Gigantic” and “Where Is My Mind?”. “River Euphrates” is an upbeat, distorted track about a man’s unusual excursion through the Middle East and one of its most famous rivers.

Two versions of this song exist (both with the same set of lyrics): the album version, mixed using Steve Albini’s classic “dry” production (most famously used on Nirvana’s 1993 classic In Utero) and the single version, released as a B-side to “Gigantic,” rerecorded at Southern Studios in London. The B-side version features a guitar solo at the end: